How Did They Know?

Someone posted a quote that one of the speakers used recently in conference a few weeks ago.  I looked it up to see exactly where it came from.  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who lived from 1881 to 1955, said this...

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience;  we are spiritual beings having a human experience."

Wow!  Was this guy a Mormon?  Nope!  He was a French philosopher and Jesuit Priest.  But smart guy - how did he know that we, indeed, are spiritual beings having a human experience?  It's all part of the Plan of Salvation, according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Another quote is a stanza of a poem, by the renowned poet, William Wordsworth, who lived from 1770 to 1850.

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
 The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
        Hath had elsewhere its setting,
        And cometh from afar;
        Not in entire forgetfulness,
        And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
        From God, who is our home."

I've always loved this.  And again, how did Wordsworth know that, indeed, we came from our heavenly home, with our Father, God, who placed us on this earth.  A veil was drawn between here and our heavenly home.  He sent us to earth to try us and to test us, to see if we, by our faith, could find our way back to Him. It is in and through the Gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ, that we can get back to live with our Heavenly Father again.  Faith, repentance, baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost are the tools we need to get back to Him. And because none of us can make it there on our own merits, we have been given a Savior - God's Son, Jesus Christ - to atone for our sins.  If we will repent and rely upon His atonement, we may return to live with God.